


Complicity

by divingforstones



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Angst, Black-Tie Events, Co-Conspirators, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-20 12:37:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1510670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/divingforstones/pseuds/divingforstones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“They’re facing each other over a body in her morgue and there’s an entire silent conversation going on between them. And it’s because of what she’s just said.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Complicity

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to wendymr for beta'ing this in such a very helpful way. It's been tinkered with since so any remaining errors are mine.
> 
> This is very angsty. I promise to fix them in the end. Or have Laura and her co-conspirator do it.

Laura gives them both another look. Slightly exasperated this time, she’s aware. They pay her absolutely no heed whatsoever.  She can generally exert rather better sway than this over them when she’s here in the morgue, on her own turf. But a comment that she’s made has triggered them and they’re off on one of their tangents, arguing. There’s something about the tangled web of interactions between the key players in this case that’s eluding them, and they seem to disagree in particular about the likely nature of one relationship. Now she’s getting sucked into their debate, notwithstanding her rather strong desire to get through her post-mortem findings with them sometime this morning.

“There is another option,” she begins, despite herself, and they both turn enquiring expressions towards her. “Maybe both these people that you’re talking about _did_ actually want to be in a relationship together but one of them vetoed it for some reason. Hard to let go of if—” She stops.

There’s something about the utter silence and stillness that has descended. It’s quiet even for the morgue. She looks at them. James’s face is blank. Robbie’s isn’t, Robbie looks—stricken. She looks again at James. His eyes are full of pain. They’re facing each other over a body in her morgue and there’s an entire silent conversation going on between them. And it’s because of what she’s just said.

And then Robbie, without a word to either of them, or a further glance at James, just turns and leaves. He just leaves. “ _Robbie_ ,” she calls after his retreating back, but he gives no sign of having heard her. And through the glass she watches him head along the corridor, looking straight ahead.

She turns her astonishment to James. He looks back at her, quite resigned. Except that there’s still that horribly acute look of pain in his eyes. “Do you want to go after him?” she asks. _Do,_ she finds herself thinking, _please do._

“Thought you might want to?” he asks.

“What?”

“He doesn’t want me to, I’m sure,” he explains. Rather kindly. Casual in tone. But she really can’t take that look in his eyes.

“Did something happen…”

He just looks at her.

“Okay. Do you—” She waves a hand rather helplessly at the body.

They proceed. James is perfectly efficient. He asks intelligent questions and gets her to clarify certain points. He makes notes and demonstrates by his comments that he’s fully grasped all the detailed minutiae that led her to her conclusions. He appears to give her his full attention. She has the impression that only a fraction of him is here with her in this morgue.

Then he thanks her politely and off he goes. Not going after Robbie.

***

She seeks Robbie out, of course, later that day. She couldn’t leave him like that. So when she spots James heading out to the car park she knows that she’s got a short window and she catches Robbie alone in his office. He looks up from his perusal of his paperwork. Obviously knowing why she’s here. But she can’t exactly fool herself that he looks particularly receptive.

“Anything you want to talk about?” she asks. There doesn’t seem to be much point leading up that question after this morning.

“No,” he says shortly. And that’s it. She feels curiously out of her depth. It’s not a feeling that she’s used to having where Robbie is concerned. But then he’s the one who generally seeks her out himself, if he wants to, when something’s sent him into turmoil. This has to be very recent, whatever's happened, or she would have noticed before today. But she knows, deep down, that he’s not about to seek her out on this one.

***

It’s an ungodly hour of the morning, when the next body is discovered. It’s just about light but the day isn’t holding much promise. It’s an endlessly grey and miserable spring that they’re enduring. She watches Robbie and James approach through the trees, not saying much to each other from the look of it. But then they’ve never felt the need to make small talk with each other, after all.

They crouch down beside each other, facing her, ready to listen.

And, what are the odds? She’s already discovered that the victim has a Midnight Addiction tattoo. She indicates his forearm. “I may not be able to provide you with an exact age, but at least this definitely dates his era.”

She looks at James, suppressing her smile already, virtually inviting him to make a smart rejoinder about Robbie’s era. She might as well be staring at a wall.

She looks at Robbie. He’s not looking at her. Or at anything in particular. Not even the body right now. Just looking straight ahead. She seems to be making a very bad habit of touching raw edges with them at the moment.

For the rest of the time, they all three focus on the task in front of them. She gets little unconvincing smiles from both of them at times and they make eye contact with her, but not with each other. They’re discussing her initial thoughts in a polite and professional manner with each other as they leave.

Well that was—disturbing.

 _Age?_ Has Robbie turned James down because of the not insignificant age gap? Surely not. But—she could suddenly see how that could become an insurmountable obstacle in Robbie’s head. He’d even been conscious about how she’d feel about being attached to a pensioner, as he’d put it, when she was with him, the last time that he’d considered retirement. And this time he is actually retiring. Probably his awareness of his age is descending irrevocably on him now.

Robbie’s always been fiercely protective of James.  James may not even realise quite how much. But just try scratching the surface and there it is. Robbie might feel that he has no right to indulge in a relationship with a lad, as he’d put it, who’s of an age with his children, really. That it would deny James the chance of all the things that had been at the living centre of Robbie's own life for years—and James, God, James wouldn’t be confident enough to convince him that that’s what he really wanted if he was hurt by the rejection. A rejection which he would most likely have anticipated anyway. He’d fear other reasons, wouldn’t he? He’s never quite seemed to see how much Robbie thinks of him, feels for him.

But would they really be such utter idiots not to talk about it further when they’re both in pain? Yes, she has a horrible feeling that they really would. And whatever the reason that things have gone so wrong, James, by now, has obviously politely withdrawn. Which would make broaching the topic almost impossible for Robbie. Not that he would, anyway, if he thinks he’s done what’s best and said his piece. Robbie can be stubborn. Very stubborn. Oh, why won’t he just come and _talk_ to her? God, if half her suspicions are correct, she’d set him straight in a hurry, given half a chance.

***

Spring wears on. Any time she encounters them, they’re discussing a case. They’re always discussing cases these days. Just not, so far as she can make out, ever over a pint any more.

She’s sifting through a pile of envelopes at the main desk, one morning, searching for one particular lab report that has somehow made it into the station, but not to her office, when they appear on their way out. Discussing a case. It’s a wonder that they have any cases left in Oxford to solve _._ They stop, of course, when they see her. They both act perfectly normally towards her still. At least, she’s sure that they both think they do. There’s no levity about either of them any more, no humour. She gets smiles from both of them when she makes a joke, but neither of them contribute much. She just can’t seem to find a way in.

Robbie, these days, underneath it all, just looks—defeated. Well, if he’s said no to James and is trying to get things back on an even keel, back to normal, he might be perfectly right to feel defeated. She can only imagine what sort of distance James now needs to leverage between them if her suspicions are anywhere near accurate.

James, he looks much the same outwardly. It’s just—any time she gets a good look at those eyes. It’s all blue-grey, ice-cold, turbulent seas. How is he coping with this? If something’s finally happened, and it’s somehow gone so very wrong?  If he’s taken a chance and been rejected by Robbie, then how in God’s name is he coping?

They’ve taken their leave and smiled at her and are heading towards the door when Jean Innocent comes up the steps and they both come to a halt again for Robbie to brief her on where they’re going.

“Thought we’d have another go at that colleague, ma’am, he still seems to be holding back something, playing down how well he knew her.”

“Ah, yes, the work husband, essentially,” Jean jokes. Deeply unfortunately. “Quasi-marriages and domestic disagreements in the office. Giving their unfortunate boss all sorts of headaches, no doubt.”

They both briefly freeze. Robbie’s jaw muscles tighten. James almost stiffens. Then they give a joint polite “ _Ma’am,_ ” and turn, mirroring each other’s movements, and off they go. Walking automatically in step across the car park. Not giving one look or saying one word to each other.

She realises that she’s not the only one staring after them.

Jean is frowning when she turns to look at her. “Do you know what they’re fighting about?”

“I don’t think they’re fighting,” Laura finds herself saying. “I think it’s something else.”

 _“Oh._ ”

Laura studies her. Either Jean is even sharper than she’d thought and she’s understood more than Laura had meant her to just from that. Or she’s been reaching her own conclusions, and maintaining her own counsel, about the dynamics between Robbie and James for God knows how long already.

“Well, is there something you can do about that?” Jean enquires now.

“Me?” Laura is taken aback at the source of the suggestion rather than the actual idea. “I don’t think they’d welcome any intervention, actually.”

“They don’t need to welcome it, do they? As long as it’s effective?” How very—true. She gazes at Jean. At times over the past few years it has occurred to Laura that they might get along rather well with each other, away from the confines of the station. Something about the way that the other woman cuts to the chase.

“And if it was—effective. Any intervention.” She sounds out the idea, mindful of who she’s talking to. “Then would you have to take official notice of any successful results of that, speaking hypothetically?”

“With Robbie so close to retirement? Hardly time for it to become a problem for me. And if I took notice of every fledging relationship that’s rumoured to start in this station, I’d be a remarkably busy woman. I _am_ a remarkably busy woman,” she mutters to herself, eliciting a half-smile from Laura. “And I doubt I’d ever know anyway, would I?”

Laura considers her in silence.

“I generally have a coffee-break in my office on a Friday afternoon,” Jean continues. “Schedule permitting. Heralding the beginning of the end of my working week, I sincerely hope. I send my PA out for something decent. At four o’clock precisely it will be today.”

“Will it?” Laura is rather enjoying this now. She must have been missing the welcome energy her own regular sparring companions at work used to inject into her day, a lot more than she’d realised.

“And yours is…”Jean raises her eyebrows.

“I’m partial to a flat white.”

“Indeed,” says Jean approvingly, turning away.

 _Indeed,_ thinks Laura _._ This is an unexpected relief. She really hasn’t much liked the look of Robbie recently. But it’s James who—God. She really just can’t take the look of James much longer.

And she’s just thoroughly relieved to have someone else who implicitly accepts that the world is tilting the wrong way on its axis on the day that Robbie Lewis and James Hathaway are polite and professional with one another.

 

 

 

 

 

_One Week Later:_

  
“You’re okay to meet me there tonight, Robbie?” Laura stops in the doorway and looks in at him, as he sits frowning at his monitor.

“‘Course.”

She registers James raising his head in surprise. Robbie immediately looks intensely awkward. More than awkward. He’s looking quite bothered. Oh God, maybe this wasn’t the best idea after all. James looks like someone has punched him in the stomach. She’s suddenly reminded that she’s playing with fire here. But something has to happen. This black-tie charity function seemed the best opportunity possible. And she’d been very sure that neither of them actually intended to go until she’d prevailed on Robbie’s kindness. _Ticket bought, cause supported, duty done,_ as he’d said succinctly, until she’d asked her favour. But doesn’t James remember that she’s very much with Franco?

“Laura asked me this morning,” Robbie is explaining hurriedly.

“Of course,” says James in friendly tones, dropping his head to his paperwork once more, face carefully composed.

“She—” Robbie is looking over at his bent head, almost a plea in his eyes but then he seems to run out of words.

“Franco can’t make it this evening,” Laura starts to explain, conversationally, addressing herself obviously to James so that he’s forced to look up again. “He’s away speaking at a conference in Bath. I told him I’ll have to come to the next one with him, if they keep finding him such lovely destinations. And such nice hotels to stay in.” She smiles at him, hoping that she’s getting her meaning across.

“Of course,” is all he says again _._ But he looks relieved at the reminder that she won’t be an actual date for Robbie, all the same, she reckons.

***

“Mr Innocent finds himself unable to make it this evening, after all.” Jean addresses her opening gambit straight at Robbie as both her officers look up from their work, registering her presence.

“Is that so?” Robbie says sympathetically.  Jean registers that he also has the cheek to look unsurprised _._ “I’m escorting our good doctor,” he explains. Delighted that he’s got an out, she thinks, amused.

“And what about your sergeant then?” she muses aloud. She turns her head in time to catch a fleeting expression of pure horror on Sergeant Hathaway’s face before he schools his face into careful blankness.

“Actually, I was thinking of just giving it a miss altogether, ma’am,” he says casually. “Lots to do here. Wouldn’t want to be late with the end of month stats.”

So Laura had been right about this, too. She’d said his consternation would be such that he would be unable to come up with a decent excuse quite rapidly enough to save himself. “I’m sure we could overlook a certain tardiness, just this once,” she says, smiling at him.

James blinks rapidly. Not so much a rabbit in the headlights, she thinks, more—a suspect in the interrogation room who has seen his first alibi crumble and is casting about for another.

“You can meet me there at eight, sergeant,” she says, before he can come up with anything. “Many thanks.” She exits swiftly.

“God, that was—unlucky,” she hears Robbie offer in her wake.

Judging by the silence that follows James is apparently too stunned by the turn events have taken to formulate a response just yet.

***

Jean has finally excused herself from their table, much, Laura observes, to James’s very evident relief. It hasn’t been the most relaxed evening so far. Neither man has been particularly talkative. Laura’s beginning to wonder if this really is a good plan, after all.

“I’ll just…” She gets up, gesturing vaguely in the direction Jean has gone.

“Why do women always do that?” asks Robbie. “Go to the bathroom in pairs?” Probably not so much stereotyping as just needing something to say, as he realises that he’s about to be left alone with James. With no computer screen or paperwork for either of them to hide behind. They can hardly launch into discussing a case now, can they? She says nothing, just smiles at them both.

“Let’s just be thankful that they do.” James sounds rather shattered. “Gives the rest of us a break. No offence,” he adds hurriedly, glancing up at her.

Robbie suddenly sounds genuinely amused. “Having a rough evening, are you?”

“Couldn’t we just—leave now? Invent a call-out?”

“That doesn’t work when your date is your chief super, sergeant. Can’t be that bad, surely?”

“Enough to make my resignation definite, if it turned into a regular thing.”

Robbie’s voice changes suddenly, becoming gruffer and softer. _“_ Want to go outside for a bit, James?”

Oh, God, at last.

She finds Jean lingering in the softly lit, carpeted hallway, by a fire door which has a view of the car park, as it happens. No, not a car park, this is the deserted back entrance of the hotel. Probably for deliveries.  Jean doesn’t ask how events are panning out, because she’s obviously caught sight of Robbie and James appearing through another door, James already patting the pocket of his tuxedo in search of an obviously sorely-needed cigarette.

“They scrub up well, don’t they?” asks Jean amused. “Our dates?” She’s moved back from the door already so she won’t be seen herself. Probably the art of surveillance is well-ingrained in her. Laura joins her, also keeping near the wall. It’s dark outside by now, but there’s enough artificial lighting flooding down from the hotel windows for them to watch both men pacing. Still in step. They might be beginning to talk fairly animatedly already, if their gestures are anything to go by. Perhaps James’s reference to his plans for when Robbie leaves has provided a way in to the topic.

Laura’s quite glad that she can’t hear them. Taking the odd glance to see if they’re going to be all right is one thing. Eavesdropping on this would be quite another.

“Didn’t your boyfriend wonder why you didn’t require his presence this evening?” Jean asks idly.

“No, he’s away all weekend.”

“Ah, much like my husband.”

“Well, tomorrow evening then, if you happen to have no plans…”

“What, further scheming in case this doesn’t work?” asks Jean, smiling.

“No, just a drink, if you fancy it.”

“I would.” Jean looks rather surprised. “Somewhere quiet might be good. Tonight’s going to be a long one, I fear.”

“Could be. Though I hope our dates have the sense to leave shortly.” _Hopefully together._

“Isn’t Robbie too full of old-fashioned chivalry to abandon his date?” Jean asks curiously.

“No, he knows I don’t need that. I hope.” But she’s suddenly aware that that’s rather a good point. She doesn’t need that, true, but Robbie is chivalrous where she’s concerned. Always. “And we’re hardly amongst strangers,” she says, trying to convince herself.

“Don’t remind me.” Jean gives a sigh. “Must return and mingle.”

Glad to be without those particular responsibilities, Laura lingers for a moment in the quiet of the hallway. They’re sitting on a bench now, the two of them outside. The cigarette has been discarded. James is leaning forward a bit, head bent. And, as she watches, Robbie's hand comes up and rests between his shoulder blades. Thank God for that. At least they must be getting to the heart of the matter _._ She’s about to turn away when she sees James just tip sideways, almost as if he’s falling, so he comes to rest leaning against Robbie. He turns his head so that his face must be buried in Robbie’s shoulder. Robbie brings a hand up to the back of his head, stroking.

Is he just being comforted, James? she wonders as she leaves them in private. Or is it more, on Robbie’s part, is he letting himself do more than that?

***

“This is quite a find.” Jean is looking around the bar approvingly.

“Robbie’s find actually. It’s generally a lot emptier than this. He took me here once when he wanted to ask me about something, away from the station.” _Or rather, someone._

“Because he wanted to talk to you in private, undisturbed?”

She’s not about to tell Jean quite how worried Robbie had been about James when he first brought her here, years ago. She doesn’t know what exactly happened between he and James on that case on that country estate James grew up on, but she had picked up that James had been riding very close to resignation. Or disciplinary action. Or something. That’s hardly something that she’ll be going into with Jean.

But the other woman seems to have picked up on her sudden reticence. Well-versed in reading cues about when people are willing to talk, of course. “I don’t mean to pry,” she’s saying now. “I had a reason for asking. Would this be somewhere quiet that Robbie might think of when he’s taking someone out? Someone who he needs to take a little care with?”

“Prob—” She stops.

“Look in the corner booth.”

It’s James. It’s impossible to see who he’s with from here, the view is too obscured, but she can make a good guess anyway. From James’s whole happily engrossed, animated demeanour, evident right across the crowded pub.

“Yes,” she says, smiling at Jean. “Very probably.”

After that, it’s just a matter of waiting. They pass the time in a very engaging conversation, an argument almost, which both of them seem to be enjoying equally. Both of them remember to send a quick glance over to that corner booth from time to time. And eventually their patience is rewarded. James rises and starts to make his way in the direction of the door. And Robbie appears, headed for the bar. Which is, luckily, in the opposite direction to their own table.

She gives him a few minutes. He won’t be getting served in a hurry, not with this crowd. “Ready for another?” Laura asks eventually, her eyes on Jean’s half-full glass.

“Well, of course,” Jean says, obligingly, keeping a straight face _._

Robbie looks momentarily startled when Laura materialises beside him.

“Hello,” she says cheerfully and proceeds to engage the barman’s attention and order, aware that he’s fixing what she privately calls his deducting gaze on her.

“Head better?” he asks eventually, still eyeing her.

“Much,” she says seriously, nodding. Jean had been right, as it turned out, about Robbie’s chivalry. She’d rather underestimated that. And she should have known better. She’d had to provide him with an easy way out, in the end.

“Not like you to leave a party early,” he points out.

“No, no, much more your style, that,” she parries straight back. Okay, so he may be onto her. But if he thinks that the most she’s done is to invent an excuse to leave him talking with James, she’ll be happy. They'd been back inside when she’d left, sitting at a rather shadowed corner table. Things had looked—hopeful, she’d thought when she bid them goodnight. “Did you stay long yourself?” she asks now.

“No. We didn’t. Went back to mine for a—nightcap.”

She tries to contain her pleasure at that.

Robbie’s received the two glasses he was waiting for, but he doesn’t leave her just yet. “Who are you here with, anyway?” he asks curiously.

“A friend.” She’s not rocking any boats. “And you’re here with …”

“I’m here with James,” he says softly.

And it’s not the words, or even the tone, gentle as it is, that finally tells her.  It’s his whole demeanour as he says those words and the way his mouth starts to lift into a very Robbie Lewis delighted grin. It tells her more than he’d meant to tell her about last night and all that she’s been wanting to know. She just can’t stop a wholehearted smile of delight breaking out in response.

“Oh, you,” he says in pure affection, shaking his head, turning to go back to the table where James doubtlessly awaits.

She follows him, though. Just for a moment to say a quick hello to James. She needs to see for herself that that look has gone at last. And James meets her own look as she approaches, surprised into a smile, smiling properly as if a smile is something that can be thoroughly at home on his face after all. He’s clear-eyed. It’s all calm blue seas now. Settled. Clear with a very large dose of joy.


End file.
